The Big Fresh May 18, 2013
When a Phone Is Not a Phone

There was a time when nails were high-tech. There was a time when people had to be told how to use a telephone. Technology is just a tool. People use tools to improve their lives.

Tom Clancy

Last week I visited Katherine Sokolowski's amazing fifth-grade classroom in central Illinois. We were chatting just before students arrived. Katherine paused. "Wait a minute -- I need to turn off my phone." She pulled out her smartphone and jabbed at the screen for a moment. But surprisingly, the phone stayed in her hand. As students wandered into the classroom, she greeted each one, using the device to take lunch count and attendance.

When it came time for the writing minilesson, she projected an image of a website from her phone to the white screen at the front of the room. During reading workshop, she listened intently to each child she conferred with, asked probing questions, gave advice, and pecked away at the Evernote app on the phone to record key assessment moments. When one boy shared his new reading choice, Redwall by Brian Jacques, they flipped the book over to preview it and discovered there was no text on the back cover. Katherine didn't miss a beat. "Let's look up Redwall on Amazon -- there will be a summary and reviews there." Within moments they were reading a detailed description of the plot at Amazon's website. When the last class iPad was signed out for partner work later in the morning, Katherine handed her phone over to a student so he and a classmate could use it for research.

I marveled later with Katherine after the students went to the library at how much the phone was used during the literacy block. She explained how Internet connections can be iffy at the school, but the phone connection almost always works. Because of its dependability, it's become a go-to tool for everything from lunch counts to research on the fly.

When a phone is not used as a phone in Katherine's classroom, she is modeling life as a learner and community member in three important ways. The device is a key resource for inquiry -- the whole web is in the palm of our hands. When there are moments worth recording for assessment, she can do so instantly and store them in the cloud for access later. And maybe most important, every time Katherine hands over the device to a student, she is saying "I trust you."

I remember years ago Jerome Harste in a talk deriding a dumbed-down curriculum, especially considering the expertise of teachers and brilliance of children, said, "It's like we're using a telescope as a doorstop in classrooms!" Watching Katherine, I thought again about the knee-jerk policy in many schools which forbids or severely limits the use of smartphones by students and teachers. There is a world of potential for these devices that makes concerns about texting seem downright trivial, and one classroom in rural Illinois gave me a glimpse of what is possible.

This week we take a look at grouping for instruction. Plus more as always -- enjoy!

Katherine Sokolowski has posted a photo essay on her blog Read, Write, Reflect of the images I captured on my visit to her fifth-grade classroom last week. What's striking is how comfortable students are with technology throughout the morning:

In kindergarten, table groups are a natural and informal way to help groups of students learn new skills through eavesdropping. In this short video from Mandy Robek's kindergarten class, Mandy targets the same skill of defining syllables during individual conferences at the table so that the learning is reinforced for all:

Brenda Power is the founder of Choice Literacy. She worked for many years as a professor at the University of Maine and an editor at Stenhouse Publishers. Her publications as an author include Living the Questions and The Art of Classroom Inquiry. She has worked as a book editor and video producer for many of the authors featured at this site.